The race for mayor

Letters to the editor on the San Diego mayoral election, for Nov. 16, 2013

When the campaign for San Diego mayor kicked off, I was pleasantly surprised when I heard on one local newscast that the candidates had agreed there would be no negative campaigning. This held true until about the last two or three weeks, when Kevin Faulconer’s campaign committee started running negative ads on TV about Nathan Fletcher.

This was a great disappointment to me and some of my friends because we thought Faulconer was a man of his word. That left us with Fletcher and David Alvarez to choose from, until Thursday, when I received a negative mailer representing Alvarez.

Thanks to the American Federation of Teachers for the negative mailer, I was left with only one choice. I have been a registered Democrat since 1957, but I never vote a strict party line. I thought Faulconer was the best candidate until the negative ads started running. As a result my mail ballot was cast for Fletcher.

Russell Snider

Clairemont

I am a Filipino-American community leader, currently the vice president of Samahan Fil-Am Community of San Diego County.

I am endorsing Mike Aguirre for mayor because he is the most-qualified candidate. Experienced, educated and his purpose to the community is undeniable. His accountability is superb. He fought for us, the people of San Diego when he was city attorney.

Mike Aguirre is the only candidate who can turn San Diego into the best city for multicultural citizens to live in. I do not see any reason at all for not electing Mike Aguirre as our new mayor.

Eleanor Quinto Sober

San Diego

The U-T’s editorial staff should demand that Kevin Faulconer immediately resign his candidacy for mayor of San Diego for making them look so reckless in their Nov. 6 editorial, “Stability, integrity paying off for Faulconer.”. On the same day, U-T journalist Craig Gustafson writes that a Faulconer campaign ad, featuring former Mayor Jerry Sanders, stretches the truth and is misleading. I’ll go one further; it’s a deliberate attempt to deceive the voters.

Sanders claims that his and Faulconer’s pension reform is ”saving a billion dollars that can now be put back into the community.” Wrong, no money has yet been saved, and there is no billion dollars that can NOW be accessed by anyone, and there won’t be for a long time. That’s not a display of integrity, it’s a disgrace, and the U-T should be angry for being made a laughingstock by Mr. Faulconer. Gil Noble

Vista

For the past several weeks we have been plagued with watching negative advertising slandering mayoral candidate Nathan Fletcher by candidate Kevin Falconer. This extremely boring ad is shown at least twice every hour, or possibly more times, all day, every day.

I’m sure is has to cost the Falconer committee several thousand dollars, if not in the millions. I would think that if Kevin would take the majority of that money and spend it on telling the public exactly what he plans to do if he is elected instead of spending it on trying to put down is opponent, it might help in his popularity race.